Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

The family of a Louisiana man killed by a Columbus police officer Friday night acknowledges that he was carrying a gun but says he shouldn't have been shot.

Relatives of Edward Hayes, 31, including a brother and cousin who were with him when police first confronted them, say he was running away from officers and never intended to use the gun he had tucked in his waistband.

"He was saying, 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I got a gun but don't shoot!' " said his younger brother, Dwayne Hayes. "He was trying not to get killed," said grandmother Cecelia Callender.

She and other relatives who traveled to Columbus from Louisiana after hearing of the shooting gathered yesterday at a relative's home on the West Side.

Edward Hayes had his hand on the gun as he ran, Dwayne Hayes said, but he said he never saw his brother take out the weapon.

Hayes was shot at Mount Vernon Avenue and N. 17th Street on the Near East Side about 11 p.m. by Officer Fredrick Hannah, an officer for nine years who has been involved in two prior shootings. The men he shot in those cases survived, and the Police Division said Hannah, 35, was justified both times.

The allegations raised by Hayes' family were rebutted by the head of the local police union, who said the shooting would not have occurred if Hayes and others in the car weren't carrying illegal guns.

"Our officer has a responsibility to react to a suspect's actions, and he did so," said Jim Gilbert, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9. "The burden is not on us to wait and be fired upon."

Police have released few details of the shooting, saying Hannah and Edward Hayes had a "brief confrontation" and that Hayes "displayed a gun" after running from a car.

A paramedic could be heard saying over Fire Division radios that night that Hayes was shot in the upper back or back of his neck. He died a short time later.

Two other suspects, Lester K. Joseph, 31, and Dwight T. Jackson Jr., 30, were caught and arrested. Joseph, the car's driver and Hayes' cousin, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and improper transport of a gun. Jackson was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and tampering with evidence. Dwayne Hayes wasn't charged.

Columbus Safety Director Mitchell Brown told City Council members last night that Police Division officials already have begun an investigation of the shooting.

He said he has asked the city's Community Relations Commission to put together a group of residents to "mitigate any overreaction" in the Mount Vernon area.

About 25 people, including Hayes' family, stood at last night's council meeting as Near East Side activist Barry Edney called on the city to suspend Mayor Michael B. Coleman's summer strike-force initiative, which puts extra police in high-crime areas. Hannah was part of that detail when he shot Hayes.

Edney said he witnessed the shooting. He said Hayes was chased by police and shot after pleading for his life.

"We're going to make sure justice is served, even if we have to get the federal government in," said Edney, who was escorted out of City Hall by two police officers after speaking beyond the council's three-minute limit.

Police said they first approached the parked car in which Hayes was sitting because they suspected a drug deal was occurring, although no drug charges have been filed. Police recovered three guns.

In a brief telephone interview from the Franklin County jail, Joseph said he heard the shots that killed his cousin. He said they ran because they wanted to ditch the guns and avoid arrest, but they wouldn't have shot at the police officers.

"Everything is happening so fast, I'm discombobulated," he said.

Dwayne Hayes said he saw his brother run past him but didn't realize until later that he had been shot.

Elaine Valentine Hayes said her son had no drugs.

"Say my child had a gun and you're telling the truth, but say my child had drugs and you're lying," she said.

Louisiana court records show that Jackson and Joseph have prior drug convictions, but Dwayne Hayes insisted the group was only socializing with some young women when police rolled up.

Family members said Edward Hayes was killed on his oldest daughter's 16th birthday. He had been visiting Columbus from New Orleans for a graduation party and a wedding.

"They should have arrested him and let a judge decide," said his father, Don Hayes Sr., who worked with him in catering at the New Orleans zoo. "This boy was not going to shoot somebody. He was murdered."

"OK, he was wrong for having a gun, but he still was a human," Valentine Hayes said. "There's a punishment for everything. But is the punishment death?"